Pervez Musharraf returns home, vows to 'save' Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: Defying death threats and vowing to contest the upcoming general elections in the country, Pakistan's former military dictator General PervezMusharraf returned home from a four-year self-imposed exile in Britain on Sunday.

Musharraf, 69, landed in Karachi where he was greeted by hundreds of his supporters at the airport waving green flags, with his pictures jostling with large frames of Pakistan's founder, Mohammad Ali Jinnah. The former president, who ruled Pakistan from 1999 to 2008, thanked his supporters and asked them to help him make the country a better place.

"I have put my life in danger and come to Pakistan, to be the savior of this country," Musharraf said at the airport. "I have come to save Pakistan. Inshallah (God willing), we will be successful if I have your support," he said.

The former general chided people who doubted he would return. "Where are those who said I would never come back?" he asked. Musharraf had vowed several times in the past that he would return to Pakistan, but those attempts never materialized. Last year, he dropped his plans to return home at the last moment after the military warned him against coming back.

"There were indications that they didn't want me to come, and my own colleagues told me not to come," Musharraf had then said. This time, he said, he would be protected by government security and his private security guards from the army's special services group.

Apart from death threats, Musharraf faces a string of legal troubles including conspiracy to murder, but on Friday, Pakistani authorities granted him protective bail in several outstanding cases, freeing him from immediate arrest. He is charged with involvement in the 2006 death of a Baloch nationalist leader, Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, in a military operation and also faces criminal charges in connection with the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, killed following an election rally in the garrison city of Rawalpindi in December 2007, shortly after her return from exile. Musharraf has said the charges against him against him are politically motivated.

Political pundits suggested that the former strongman's return was made possible through intervention of Saudi Arabia's royal family, which asked Nawaz Sharif, two-time premier and one of Musharraf's arch enemies, to refrain from creating trouble for the ex-president.

According to Musharraf's close aide, both Sharif and army chief Ashfaq Parvez Kayani paid visits to the Saudi kingdom recently to discuss issues related to Musharraf's return.

Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz's top leadership is quiet on the alleged deal over Musharraf's return. However, Ahmad Raza Kasuri, the senior vice president of Musharraf's party, All Pakistan Muslim League, confirmed a deal with the PML-N.

"If no such deal was made, then why was Nawaz Sharif citing divine verses in favour of Musharraf's return?" he asked reporters. At a press conference in Dubai on Saturday, Musharraf disclosed that he was advised by the Saudi authorities against returning to Pakistan due to security concerns but refrained from saying anything about the deal struck with Nawaz.

In a video message, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan operative Adnan Rasheed, who is also a former Pakistan Air Force technician who was involved in the attempt to assassinate the former president during his tenure, said the group has prepared a special force comprising snipers, suicide bombers and a special assault team for killing Musharraf.

Rasheed was previously imprisoned in Bannu jail after being sentenced for masterminding the attacks on Musharraf. He was freed by the Taliban in last April's brazen assault n the prison in the north western city of Bannu, next to North Waziristan tribal region. As a ruler, Musharraf escaped three Al Qaeda assassination attempts. He became a prominent target for militants after making Pakistan a key US ally in the "war on terror" after the 9/11 attacks. Since stepping down from power in 2008, he was living in London and Dubai.